Till the storm passes by

June 16, 2015 (Tuesday)
I’m writing this on Monday, June 15, thinking about a tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico that may be more than that when you read this. It has been raining around here on Monday, teasing us with periods of sunshine. The satellite images have shown the disturbance moving into the gulf from off the coast of Belize a few days ago. It moved across the Yucatan and appears headed in this general direction. It already has tropical storm winds, but no closed circulation as I write this. I will be conducting a memorial service tomorrow at the funeral home at 2:00 p.m. At least, that’s the plan.
This scenario reminds me of June 23, 1968, a Sunday. We had been hearing on the radio news about a disturbance somewhere near the coast south of here. In contrast to the clear and specific pictures we have today, we had only partial information that day, with the radio telling us only that there was a disturbance, with conflicting locations given at each broadcast. So we were not at all sure there was anything to be concerned about as we went to Sunday School and church. But it started raining and the wind started blowing, and, though we did not know it, the storm was here. People kept showing up, however, because we thought it was only rain. Umbrellas were turned inside out and people were drenched while moving from the car to the church door. As I preached that day, the palm trees could be seen being bent by the strong winds. Afterwards, we went home through the storm and turned on the radio, only to discover that a storm was on its way. Or so they were saying. So people stayed inside, awaiting the storm, for the rest of the day. At church time that evening, the sun was shining, the wind had died down, the rains had stopped and the storm had already passed through. But the news kept saying it was on its way. So the church folks stayed home, waiting for the storm that had already passed. We learned later that the storm’s name was “Candy.” It had made landfall at Port Aransas. I’m glad we have much better information these days.
All this talk about storms makes me think of a great old gospel song about our lives: